Could you talk about the mission of Divest Princeton? What actions have you engaged in on campus?
Divest Princeton’s mission is very simple: we want Princeton University to divest its $37.7 billion endowment from fossil fuel companies and reinvest responsibly for a just livable future. Despite the pandemic, we have had an active presence on campus including protesting events with fossil fuel partners, speaking at meetings that deny the need for divestment, holding rallies, reading out our proposal, tabling to talk to students and give out stickers, putting up posters around campus and giving stickers and flyers to supportive local businesses.
Who has power over divestment at Princeton? What, specifically, would divestment at Princeton look like?
The Board of Trustees decides policy for the endowment and PRINCO (the Princeton University Investment Company) is the University entity that manages the endowment. Following demands that the university divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa, the Council Of the Princeton University Resources Committee was created by the Trustees in 1970 to “consider questions of general policy concerning the procurement and management of the University’s financial resources.” The Resources Committee is made up of representatives of the faculty, undergraduate student body, graduate student body and staff and makes recommendations to the Trustees who then have the ultimate say. Many feel that the Resources Committee and the new committees that have been created this year are simply roadblocks to slow change and ideally derail. In the past, allowing attrition to work its magic has been an effective strategy for the university – waiting it out as students graduate and movement fall apart. The pandemic changed that pattern by moving organizing online and allowing many generations of alumni to participate actively in the campaign. Graduation is now just the beginning.
There have been other divestment movements at Princeton, such as the movement to divest from South Africa decades ago. How has past activism at Princeton informed Divest’s work?
Divest Princeton has learned a great deal from the work of past activists. Most specifically, Divest Princeton stands on the shoulders of the students who championed fossil fuel divestment on campus between 2013 and 2016 through the groups Students United for a Responsible Global Environment (SURGE) and Princeton Sustainable Investment Initiative (PSII).
How has Divest adapted to the challenges brought on by COVID-19, in terms of campus organizing?
Divest Princeton quickly pivoted to online organizing and throughout the pandemic we hosted meetings, interviews and webinars online regularly. All of these can be viewed on our site.
Is divestment effective? If Princeton divests from fossil fuel companies, won’t other investors simply step in?
Divestment from fossil fuels has two objectives – to remove the social license that allows fossil fuel companies to willfully destroy our planet for profit and to slowly put the squeeze on the availability and cost of capital for this destruction. Over 1,485 institutions with over $39.2 trillion of assets have committed to divesting from fossil fuels. The industry has underperformed for the last decade and while prices are high right now, this volatility is unattractive for prudent investors.
Can’t Princeton use its position as a shareholder to influence fossil fuel companies to operate more sustainably?
Shareholder engagement has failed at every turn. Princeton would never own enough shares to force any issue and concerted efforts have not been able to change the behaviour of companies like Exxon. We have run out of time.
Researchers at Princeton continue to investigate new technology to fight climate change. Won’t divestment undermine this work?
Princeton needs to listen to its own faculty who have been sounding the alarm on fossil fuels for decades. Unfortunately, while many faculty have done ground-breaking work contributing to our understanding of climate change and what needs to be done, Princeton has in parallel allowed BP and ExxonMobil to fund large areas of research into pipe dream technology like carbon capture and sequestration that if ever successful, would allow fossil fuel companies to continue emitting carbon. Unfortunately, CCS has failed to scale up anywhere in the world. Carbon needs to be left in the ground and Princeton researchers should be working on getting to real zero.
How can Princeton students and alumni support the divestment movement?
All Princetonians can sign our open letter calling for divestment which has been signed by over 3000 people. An exciting new development which shows the seriousness of support for divestment on campus is the Faculty & Staff Petition for Divestment from Fossil Fuels launched at the beginning of February. While many staff and faculty have been supportive of divestment since 2013, this is the first public collective action by faculty and staff to tell the administration that its continued investments in the fossil fuel industry are unacceptable. And today, Divest Princeton filed a legal complaint with the New Jersey Attorney General, urging them to compel Princeton University to fully divest from fossil fuels. Everyone who cares about the future can sign on and show their support for the complaint at bit.ly/SignComplaint.
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